Page:Poetry, a magazine of verse, Volume 7 (October 1915-March 1916).djvu/55

At the Fair liked the pale orange domes and banners, the battle-ships in the bay, the brightly dressed crowds gathering on the green for some festival. The picture was perfect and complete; I reflected upon its value for thousands of our fellow-countrymen who get from these festival-cities their first impression of what the united arts may do for men.

Afterwards I assembled other pictures in my gallery. Never from the entrance plaza, where the Fountain of Energy seemed too energetic, the façades too crowded, and the Tower of Jewels—done by Carrère and Hastings, usually so discreet—merely a showy anachronism. But the fountains in the Court of the Universe, with that ecstatic figure of the Rising Sun lifting us up like the song of a lark. The long cloistral colonnades of the Court of Abundance meeting in a high square tower with the sky through its arches—and all flaring out at night with great red torches from serpent-guarded basins. The proud rotunda of the art building mirrored in its little pool; seeming to suggest the pomp of kings to our farmers and traders.

And then a thousand lesser surprises—beauty in ambush, to take one unaware. The little alcoves of the Fountain of Youth and the Fountain of El Dorado, so near to the crowd and yet always so still and secret. The tangles of green and color in odd corners, the carpets of purple violets and yellow pansies, the rows of monumental palms praising the old-travertine walls.

And everywhere sculpture! No doubt too much sculpture at times, but why should not art be over-prodigal when